The first warm of spring; fog is hunched a mile offshore, and, no wind. Last week’s series of storms passed with waves that brought coastal alerts and mountainous breakers at the Maverick’s surfing contest sixty miles south.

At Kehoe Beach, turning right to the north, we find the customary tangle of plastic and wrack. For variety we decide to head south across Kehoe Creek, flowing out through the sand, and onto Ten Mile Beach.

The beach is blissfully clean here; the big waves have carried much of the plastic back out to sea. It’s a great relief to walk and not feel the compulsion to focus down and sort through a bunch of junk. We walk for a few hundred yards and then our preoccupation with getting to work has us turning back north where there’s plenty to pick through. Our habitual lean is toward gleaning stuff to tell the plastic debris story. A kind of shopping. Today we decide to make a valentine for our ourselves and our friends. All that red was gathered in fifteen minutes. Happy Valentine’s y’all.

Artists Judith Selby and Richard Lang have been collecting plastic pollution from Kehoe Beach for 10 years and making art with it.  More information on their Website http://www.beachplastic.com/

Gorgeous Kehoe Beach is located 40 miles north of San Francisco in Point Reyes National Seashore . See Kehoe Beach on BlooSee satellite imagery here